“The chalky cliffs of the island of Raghery, crowned by a venerable covering of brown rock, form a very beautiful and picturesque appearance as one sails towards them; and, if the turbulence of the sea does not restrain the eyes and fancy from expatiating around, such a striking similitude appears between this and the opposite coast, as readily suggests an idea that the island might once have formed a part of the adjoining country, from whence it has been disunited by some violent shock of nature.

“You, to whom demonstration is familiar, will wonder to see two shores, seven or eight miles asunder, so expeditiously connected by such a slender and fanciful middle term as apparent similitude; and yet the likeness is so strong, and attended with such peculiar circumstances, that I do not entirely despair of prevailing even on you to acknowledge my opinion as a probable one.

“It does not appear unreasonable to conclude, that, if two pieces of land, separated from each other by a chasm, be composed of the same kind of materials, similarly arranged, at equal elevations, these different lands might have been originally connected, and the chasm be only accidental.  For, let us conceive the materials to be deposited by any of the elements of fire, air, earth, or water, or by any cause whatever, and it is not likely that this cause (otherwise general) should in all its operations regularly stop short at the chasm.

“The materials of which the island of Raghery is composed are accurately the same as those of the opposite shore; and the arrangement answers so closely, as almost to demonstrate, at first view, their former union.  But to explain this more clearly, it will be necessary to give you a general sketch of this whole line of coast.

“The northern coast of Antrim seems to have been originally a compact body of lime-stone rock, considerably higher than the present level of the sea; over which, at some later period, extensive bodies of vitrifiable stone have been superinduced in a state of softness.  The original calcareous stratum appears to be much deranged and interrupted by those incumbent masses.  In some places it is depressed greatly below its ancient level; shortly after it is borne down to the water’s edge, and can be traced under its surface.  By and by it dips entirely, and seems irretrievably lost under the superior mass.  In a short space, however, it begins to emerge, and, after a similar variation, recovers its original height.

“In this manner, and with such repeated vicissitudes of elevation and depression, it pursues a course of forty miles along the coast from Lough Foyle to Lough Larne.

“It naturally becomes an object of curiosity to inquire what the substance is from which the lime-stone seems thus to have shrunk, burying itself (as it were in terror) under the covering of the ocean:  And, on examination, it appears to be the columnar basaltes, under which the lime-stone stratum is never found; nor indeed does it ever approach near to it without evident signs of derangement.